Africa

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Hashim Amla, South Africa's second highest Test run-scorer of all time, retires at the age of 39.

Cape Verde's men's handball team are on a quest to make history as they head into the main round of the Men's World Handball Championship.

By Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (and AI Artificial Intelligence)
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jan 18 2023 (IPS)

Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. However, negotiating a solution has been challenging due to several factors. One of the main reasons that recent COP Climate summits and other international climate talks have not been able to resolve climate change is that there is a lack of consensus among countries on how to address the issue. Developed countries, which have historically been the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, are often unwilling to take on significant emissions reductions or to provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.

The Gabura union, a small island adjacent to the Sundarbans forest, is expected to be submerged in seawater by 2050. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Another significant barrier to progress on climate change is the need for more political will among leaders of countries. In some cases, leaders may not see climate change as a priority or may be reluctant to take on the economic and political costs of reducing emissions or investing in clean energy due to political reasons. Some countries may be influenced by powerful fossil fuel lobbies that push against climate action. Developed countries must be willing to take on more significant emissions reductions and provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change. Developing countries, in turn, need to be willing to take on emissions reduction measures and invest in clean energy and other climate mitigation measures.This can happen through more effective multilateral negotiations such as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where all countries agree to set emissions reduction targets and support developing countries.

Bangladesh is located in the low-lying delta region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, making the country particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. Bangladesh is also prone to cyclones and other extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. The country has a long coastline, much of which is low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. As sea levels continue to rise, the risk of coastal flooding is increasing, devastatingly impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people in these areas. These events are causing widespread damage to homes and infrastructure and affecting the country’s agricultural sector, a significant source of income for many people in Bangladesh. Many people in the coastal areas have lost their homes and livelihoods due to sea level rise and coastal flooding. They face food and water insecurity due to increased soil and water salinity.

Globally, rich countries can assist Bangladesh cope with climate change in several ways. One crucial way is by providing financial assistance to help the country adapt to the impacts of climate change. This may include funding for building sea walls and other flood protection infrastructure and programs to help people in coastal areas relocate to higher ground. Another way rich countries can help is by providing technical assistance to Bangladesh to develop and implement clean energy and other climate mitigation measures. This could include funding and expertise to help the country develop renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, as well as to improve energy efficiency and to reduce emissions from the industrial and transportation sectors.

The Sundarbans forests, located in the coastal belt of Bangladesh, is one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to the impacts of climate change. The forests span over 10,000 square kilometres and is home to various plant and animal species, including the Royal Bengal tiger. Sea level rise is one of the most significant threats to the Sundarbans forest making it particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. According to a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels in the Bay of Bengal are projected to increase by up to 1 meter by the end of the century. This would devastate the Sundarban forests, as seawater would submerge large areas.

The impacts of climate change on the Sundarban forests are also likely to have knock-on effects on the people living in the surrounding areas. The forests are a significant source of livelihood for many people in the region, who rely on it for fishing, agriculture, and other activities. As the forests are damaged by sea level rise and extreme weather events, these people will also be affected by food and water insecurity and the loss of their homes and livelihoods. Many people who lost their homes and land to flooding, were forced to relocate to higher grounds.

The health impacts of climate change on people living around the Sundarban are also significant. As a result of sea level rise and increased flooding, many are at risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea. Extreme weather events are accelerating salinity across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Women are experiencing uterus cancers, infertility, and skin diseases, and men, too, are experiencing fertility problems and other health issues. Due to the loss of livelihoods and displacement, many people face food insecurity and malnutrition. In addition to these immediate impacts, climate change exacerbates the region’s existing social and economic inequalities. People living in poverty and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, as they have fewer resources to cope with the impacts and less access to services and support.

Climate change has led to a growing number of people migrating from these areas, searching for better opportunities and escaping the impacts of climate change. Most climate migrants from coastal belt areas of Bangladesh are moving to urban areas, such as the capital city of Dhaka and other major cities. These migrants often seek better job opportunities and access to services and support. However, many migrants face challenges in their new locations, such as a lack of affordable housing, discrimination, and limited access to services and support. The future is uncertain for those still living in coastal areas of Bangladesh and fighting the climate crisis. Many of the people living in these areas are among the country’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities, making them particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Climate conversations worldwide by world leaders and major organizations have been occurring every year. But they must see the severity of the situation for the people suffering and take concrete actions beyond being in a room to converse about the effects of climate change.

Climate conversations by world leaders are occurring worldwide but how much is changing ? Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Many indigenous communities across the Sundarbans forest have been experiencing extreme weather conditions. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Fishing communities face extreme poverty due to the lack of fish available in the rivers. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Women around coastline areas of Bangladesh face increased salinity, a major cause of uterus cancer. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Due to climate change, extreme heat and salinity are declining birth rates across the coastal belt in Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Climate change is accelerating the displacement of inhabitants across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

Four families are sitting with what remains in their food storage. Due to high salinity, agricultural products cannot grow well anymore. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

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The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the value of multilateralism. Human suffering was greatly reduced by collective actions such as the COVAX initiative to accelerate development and deployment of vaccines. Credit: UNDP India

By Ulrika Modéer and Tsegaye Lemma
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 18 2023 (IPS)

The multilateral system, even in the face of heightened geopolitical tension and big power rivalry, remains the uniquely inclusive vehicle for managing mutual interdependencies in ways that enhance national and global welfare. The complex challenges of a global pandemic, climate emergency, inequality and the risk of nuclear conflict cannot be dealt with by one country or one region alone. Coordinated collective action is required.

Without coordinated and timely collective global action in recent years to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, global suffering would have been far greater.

Initiatives such as COVAX and the UN’s socio-economic response to COVID-19 not only helped mitigate the public health emergency, but also help decision-makers look beyond recovery towards 2030, managing complexity and uncertainty.

The devastating war in Ukraine has been a colossal blow to multilateral efforts by the international community to maintain peace and prevent major wars. However, multilateral cooperation cannot be declared obsolete – it is crucial in efforts to put human dignity and planetary health at the heart of cross-border cooperation.

The recent Black Sea Grain Initiative agreement represents a key testament to the value of multilateral cooperation working even in the most difficult circumstances, ensuring the protection of those that are most vulnerable to global shocks.

Without this agreement, global food prices would have risen even further, and vulnerable countries pushed further into hunger and political unrest.

The multilateral system is faced with the ostensible imbalance in matching humanitarian and development needs with Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments. Despite some donors’ efforts to maintain – and even increase – their ODA commitments, others are faced with increasing politicization of aid – and it is part of the political calculus.

With the war in Ukraine still raging, there is real possibility that several donors will tap into ODA budget to cover the partial or entire cost of hosting Ukrainian refugees and rebuilding the devastated Ukrainian infrastructure and economy.

The UN system, a core part of the rule-based international order, is funded dominantly by voluntary earmarked contributions. Ultimately, this gives donor countries influence over the objectives of global public good creation.

Funding patterns tend to be unpredictable, making it hard to strategize and plan for the long term. Although earmarked funding allows the system to deliver solutions to specific issues with scale, the system’s lack of quality funding support risks eroding its multilateral character, strategic independence, universal presence, and development effectiveness.

The recently launched report by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the UN’s Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office showed that more than 70 percent of funding to the UN development system is earmarked, compared to 24 percent for the World Bank Group and IMF, and only 3 percent for the EU.

As the world faces daunting development finance prospects in 2022-2023, investments should focus on protecting a strong and effective multilateral system; the system that remains trusted by countries and partners for its reliable delivery of services.

It has also proven to complement bilateral, south-south and other forms of cooperation – beyond the traditional development narrative. An ODI study showed that the multilateral channel, when compared with bilateral channel, remains less-politicized, more demand-driven, more selective in terms of poverty criteria and a good conduit for global public goods.

Notwithstanding the institutional and bureaucratic challenges that the multilateral system faces, which must be addressed head-on, a retreat from a shared system of rules and norms that has served the world for seven decades is the wrong response.

Those of us in the multilateral system, especially in the UN development system, must recognize the difficult work that lies ahead. We must continue to demonstrate that each tax dollar is spent judiciously and show traceable results, while upholding the highest standards set out in the UN charter.

Improved transparency on how and where we spend the funds entrusted to us by our key partners and the IATI standard have long been adopted as key requirement outlined in the funding compact.

The Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network and other donor assessments have recognized the systems’ value for money and confirmed that partnerships with other UN entities improve programmes and effectively integrates multiple sources of expertise.

Of course, the system must continue to build on successes and lessons to prove to our partners that we remain worthy of their trust and drive our collective agenda.

However, the true value of multilateral cooperation can only be fully realized with strong political commitment by partners matched with the necessary financial investment.

Ulrika Modéer is UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, UNDP; Tsegaye Lemma is Team Leader, Strategic Analysis and Corporate Engagement, Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, UNDP.

Source: UNDP

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A father and son remove their belonging from their flooded home in Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas. Credit: RDF

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jan 18 2023 (IPS)

Terming the recent international donors’ conference held in Geneva a “success” after Pakistan was able to secure 10 billion US dollars, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has promised “every penny” of the pledges will be used towards rehabilitation of flood-hit people.

“It’s looking for an opportunity to take credit for something to try to win back some goodwill,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia Institute, who found the self-congratulatory messaging purely “political” of a government, which he said, was “weak, unpopular and struggling to rein in a cascading economic crisis”.

Still, he agreed, the Sharif government deserved credit for shoring up so much support in an “era of donor fatigue and global economic stress”.

But in his own country, Sharif’s words have met with much wariness.

Janib Gul Mohammad, a farmer from Fateh Ali Buledi village in Kamber Shahdadkot, one of the worst affected districts in Sindh province, doubted he would even “get a rupee out of the billions of dollars” received on his behalf.

“Our rulers are clueless about how hungry our kids are,” said Mohammad, whose family has had to ration and reduce their consumption of roti (flat bread) from “two to three to just one at every meal”.  He and his family of 13 are among the more than 33 million Pakistanis affected by last year’s unprecedented floods caused by record monsoon rains and the melting of glaciers that killed more than 1700.

Seven months since the rains began, thousands continue to live in open areas, tents, and makeshift homes in Sindh and Balochistan, the two worst-hit provinces stalked by a cold spell, disease and food shortages making life even more perilous. According to the UN, an estimated 5 million people remain exposed to or living close to flooded areas. A post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) has estimated the damage exceeded 30 bn USD—a tenth of Pakistan’s entire GDP.

The moot, attended by officials in Geneva on January 9, was from over 40 countries and included private donors and international financial institutions.

The top donors like the Islamic Development Bank pledged 4.2bn USD; the World Bank 2bn USD; the Asian Development Bank 1.5bn USD; the European Union 93million USD; Germany $90m USD; China 100m USD; Japan 77m USD; the United States announced another 100m USD on top of a similar amount already committed to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia 1 bn USD. In addition, Qatar pledged 25m USD, Canada 18.6m USD, Denmark 3.8m USD, France 386.5m USD, Italy 24m USD and Azerbaijan 2m USD had promised these funds over the next three years.

Reminding that pledges were not commitments, Kashmala Kakakhel, a climate finance expert, said she would like to get a clear distinction between the new money and one that is rebottled to address the impact of floods but doubted the government will “ever tell”.

Although the multilateral funders have been relatively generous, Kugelman said it could be stemming from, in part, “a desire to support the emerging global norm of climate justice”. But, by “only offering pledges, not actual aid, they have given themselves a safety net and a possible way out in case they decide they are not ready to commit to such large figures,” he said,

The pledges made by bilateral donors may seem smaller, said Kugelman, but this could be because they had helped earlier on. Giving the example of the United States, he said it made one of the smaller pledges at the donor’s conference but was one of the most generous bilateral donors since the floods struck.

However, of the 10bn USD pledges, 8.7 billion are loans that the government has “conveniently underplayed”, said Wilson Centre’s expert. And these may take several years to arrive, he added.

Ashafque Soomro, heading the Research and Development Foundation, a Sindh-based nongovernmental organization which had been at the forefront of assisting flood-affected communities, is not sure if getting more loans is a good idea at all. In this critical time of economic crunch, he said, the government should have “built a strong case for climate justice” to get grants instead.

“I am very concerned that the government is not only forcing us further into a debt trap but risks defaulting on repayment.” According to the former finance minister Miftah Ismail, Pakistan owes the world nearly 100 billion USD and has to repay 21bn USD to lenders during the current fiscal year. “We have no resources to repay our lenders. We will just have to try to borrow from one creditor to pay off another,” he wrote in Dawn.

Nevertheless, Soomro said, when the funds do arrive, maximum effort should be made for them to go into livelihood recovery and economic revival – like rehabilitating agricultural land and subsidizing agricultural inputs. This, he said, will generate employment and avert a looming food crisis. At the same time, Soomro said, the aid agencies should ensure their money is spent wisely and smartly to reduce climate disasters.

Kakakhel said she was struck by the finance minister’s statement that to turn pledges into an inflow of money, Pakistan needs to quickly prepare project feasibilities. “Why have an emergency donor conference at all if you are treading the same old traditional path of seeking loans?” she asked.

She further added that, “If 90 percent of the pledges are to be projectized anyway, that means the additional cost associated with climate resilience will also need to be built into the project budgets, inflating the loan amounts. Whether that will actually happen or not is anybody’s guess.”

But even if pledges become commitments, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a climate expert, was not sure if Pakistan would be able to put all of it to use, given its “track record on delayed implementation of development projects”. Pakistan, he pointed out, was littered with “more than 1,200 unfinished projects worth Rs1.6 trillion [6.67 billion USD]”.

That is why, said Dr Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist, the government must come up with not only “well planned but out-of-the-box solutions, and quickly”. He suggested investing in models that streamlined philanthropy and involved the private sector and even startups. Decisions made today, he said, needed to be backed by research and science. “Drafting policies inside power corridors or in five-star hotels will not get the desired results; we need to go out, collect evidence and come up with robust solutions to battle climate change.”

Getting down to brass tacks, Lieutenant-General Nadeem Ahmed, former deputy chairman of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), shared a formula that he said would be a sure-shot success if followed through. “All infrastructural projects may be handled through relevant lines departments whereas the more people-centred recovery programmes can be undertaken by a dedicated special management unit in the province with full autonomy so that it can bypass laborious bureaucratic processes, procedures, and approvals.

“Both systems need to be interactive and coordinate with each other for the sequencing and prioritisation of their respective project domains to ensure one is not causing harm to the other,” said the retired army officer, who was also a former chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority.

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Excerpt:

Experts question Pakistan's 10bn USD funding for flood rehabilitation, asking if it wouldn't have been better to access climate change grants.

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African countries are looking for cheaper funding for infrastructure development. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jan 17 2023 (IPS)

African countries, many reeling under high debt and experiencing economic recession, could benefit from the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), financial instruments of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

SDRs are interest-bearing units of accounts created by the IMF in 1969 to increase the official reserves of member countries. External shocks that have hit the world in the last two years have reversed socioeconomic gains and efforts to protect vulnerable communities in Africa, says Adam Elhiraika, Director of the Macroeconomics and Governance Division at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Normally, many African countries would get concessional finance, borrow money from the markets or mobilise it domestically – all options the global pandemic has compromised.

The ECA, in collaboration with African ministries, is advocating for the issuance of new SDRs and the re-allocation of existing SDRs to countries most in need.

“We need to reform the G20 Common Framework to make access to international financial markets and debt restructuring effective and inclusive,” Elhiraika told IPS in an interview.

He added that: “Africa would benefit from having a permanent seat at the G20 through its African Union, just as European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are represented. This will bring the voice of more than one billion people into the G20 processes, including discussions around debt restructuring and inequality of the SDR quota system.”

To date, nearly USD 1 trillion US dollars has been allocated by the IMF, including USD 456 billion and SDR equivalent to USD 650 billion, approved in August 2021 to help low and middle-income countries cope with the impact of COVID-19.

According to the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), African countries need more than 200 billion USD to counter the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adam Elhiraika, Director for the Macroeconomics and Governance Division at the Economic Commission for Africa. Credit: Daniel Getachew

Excerpts:

IPS: Why is it necessary to reallocate SDRs, and how would this reallocation benefit African countries?

AE: SDR is a supplementary reserve asset which the Board of the IMF unconditionally allocates to all or part of its membership when it determines that there is a need to boost global liquidity. Allocations are based on economic size hence poorer countries receive less than rich countries. For instance, Africa collectively received 5.1 percent of the recent SDR650 allocation. Consequently, while the SDR allocation provided very welcome liquidity to African countries to cope with the pandemic crisis, the considerable financing needs associated with the pandemic and the overlapping crises currently facing Africa (including the climate, food, and energy crises) mean that Africa needs more than its current allocation.

The recent SDR allocation has mostly been used by African countries to bridge their post-COVID liquidity challenges. More specifically, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa allocated part of their SDR holdings to address their pandemic response or social spending needs. At least 41 Sub-Saharan countries made use of SDRs for various public spending, including vaccine procurement and pandemic relief, ration cards, welfare payments, wages, and budget support.

Further, the median SDR utilization rates of G7 countries are about 5.9 percent, which means that G7 members alone could potentially reallocate $266 billion of SDRs to vulnerable countries. So, recycling/reallocations of the unused SDRs from countries with strong external positions, such as G7 and G20, could provide much-needed and affordable resources to vulnerable African countries.

Already, African countries are constrained by high debt, is tapping SDRs a viable route to affordable financing for economic development and SDGs?

SDR reallocations are made by countries that choose to make their own SDRs available to other countries that need them by lending them to an institution like the IMF. Tapping into SDRs is one of the options for improving Africa’s access to affordable external finance.

African ministers have been advocating for an acceleration of the implementation of SDR re-allocation mechanisms aligned with the needs of African economies. This includes considering channelling unused SDRs by G20 through regional banks, such as the African Development Banks, to support the development financing of Africa. Since the interest rates associated with SDR lending are much lower than prevailing market rates, on-lending SDRs via market mechanisms can lower the cost of borrowing and leverage critical investments in countries with market access.

IPS: The ECA has advocated for the reform of the IMF and Global Financial Architecture; why and what benefits would this reform have for African countries in need of development finance?

AE: Recent global shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine, have exacerbated the already constrained Africa’s fiscal space. While Africa has benefited from bilateral and multilateral support, particularly during the pandemic, the global financing architecture is still grossly inadequate for low—income countries and Africa.

In consultation with African finance ministries and others, the High-Level Working Group is working to identify structural challenges within the Global Financial Architecture impacting African economies. Furthermore, it also working to advance near and long-term policy recommendations for the IMF’s consideration which proposes a new working agenda for the IMF to better respond to the challenges Africa faces in the current global financial architecture.

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By Taehun Lim
GWANGIU, South Korea, Jan 17 2023 (IPS)

Given the tensions in the Indo-Pacific, a co-operation between South Korea, Japan and NATO sends a message of deterrence and shared liberal values.

The year 2022 was pivotal for the West and the NATO military alliance. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s mounting military threats against Taiwan forced NATO to recalibrate its risk analysis.

The NATO summit in Madrid in June was, therefore, remarkable in that two far-eastern states, South Korea and Japan, were invited. While Japan already has the status of a Western actor within the framework of the G7, the invitation to South Korea to attend the summit was particularly surprising.

Although Seoul has been a global partner of NATO since 2006, co-operation to date has been essentially diplomatic. South Korea had already been invited to NATO meetings of foreign ministers several times before, but this had not led to any geopolitical commitment on its part to NATO or Europe.

But circumstances have changed. The invitation to the summit was driven by NATO’s most important member by far – the US, an ally of South Korea. Does this mean that Japan and South Korea will now take on new significance for Europe and the Far East in terms of security policy?

There was immediate praise for the Indo-Pacific strategy from Washington.

On 28 December, the South Korean government under new President Yoon Suk-yeol published a strategy for the Indo-Pacific region for the first time. It stated that the country’s focus should be on promoting freedom, peace and prosperity through the creation of a rules-based order and co-operation on the rule of law and human rights.

The 43-page document includes only one paragraph on China, Seoul’s largest trading partner and the rival of its most important ally, the US. On taking office in May, Yoon announced a hard line towards China and since then has intensified the security co-operation with the US.

The Indo-Pacific strategy indirectly addresses fears of military action by China against Taiwan and calls for a resumption of the summit meetings between South Korea, Japan and China, the last of which took place in 2019.

It states that co-operation with Japan is essential for promoting co-operation and solidarity between like-minded nations in the Indo-Pacific region – a clear indication that Yoon wants to improve relations between these neighbouring countries.

Seoul also wants to expand co-operation with the Quad – the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the US – which is seen as a counterweight to China’s ambitions in the region. There was immediate praise for the Indo-Pacific strategy from Washington.

Advantages of closer co-operation for NATO

Closer ties between South Korea and Japan and a security partnership with the two East Asian states would have strategic advantages for NATO. With South Korea, it can benefit immediately from the strength of the country’s armed forces, not least in light of China’s military build-up in the Indo-Pacific.

The South Korean military is well-equipped and combat-ready because of constant North Korean military provocations. Moreover, South Korea holds large-scale joint military exercises with the US every year. Secondly, South Korea can contribute to NATO through co-operation on armaments, and can supply high-quality weapons.

The competitiveness of its arms industry is demonstrated, for example, by Poland’s purchase of South Korean tanks and howitzers in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Third, as a leader in digital technology, South Korea can strengthen NATO’s cybersecurity against Russia and China (and North Korea).

Fourth, as a globally important microchip manufacturer, South Korea – along with Japan and Taiwan – is seen by the US as part of a microchip alliance whose task is to isolate China completely from the microchip supply chain. Conversely, South Korea thus serves as a reliable partner in the microchip supply chain for NATO countries.

The current Japanese government under Fumio Kishida wants to raise the country’s military spending to two per cent of GDP by 2027 and to acquire 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Such an enhancement of Japan’s military capabilities would provide NATO with further strategic options in the face of China’s military build-up in the Indo-Pacific.

Advantages for South Korea and Japan

From a Far Eastern perspective, a strategic partnership with NATO would help in managing the Chinese military threat.

As a first step, joint military exercises involving NATO and East Asian countries could be held in the Indo-Pacific (where the US, France, the UK and Germany already have a military presence) or in Europe, in order to enable, for instance, the defence of free and unfettered trade flows in the South China Sea.

As a second step, the Far Eastern countries and NATO could perhaps establish an intelligence alliance comparable to the ‘Five Eyes’ of the Anglo-Saxon powers. This would enable the two sides of the alliance to exchange military intelligence and facilitate the formulation of joint strategies towards China and Russia.

As a third step, NATO and the Far Eastern countries could establish an informal military alliance similar to the Quad, which would strengthen collective security on both sides.

Co-operation between South Korea and NATO not only sends a clear message about deterrence but also represents a commitment to the defence across the world of the liberal values that both sides share.

For a successful strategic partnership between NATO and the Far East to develop, relations between South Korea and Japan must improve significantly. The smouldering conflict over how to address the issue of Japan’s colonial history stands in the way of close co-operation.

The enforced prostitution of Korean women during the colonial period, the visits of Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war criminals are buried, and the border dispute over the Liancourt rocks (Dokdo in Korean, Takeshima in Japanese) are some of the unresolved historically controversial issues.

This is compounded by the Japanese trade sanctions imposed on South Korea in 2019, which aim to impede the further rise of the South Korean industry. Fortunately, the current South Korean government under Yoon Suk-yeol is keen on significantly improving relations with its neighbour in order to boost a security co-operation between the two sides vis-à-vis China and North Korea.

The Japanese government will now have to respond to the signals from Seoul, if necessary, also involving the US as a mediator.

NATO’s decision in August to accept South Korea’s request to designate an embassy to represent the country in dealings with the military alliance bodes well for the development of a close strategic partnership. Given the rising military tensions in the Indo-Pacific and China’s military threats against Taiwan, co-operation between South Korea and NATO not only sends a clear message about deterrence (and thus the prevention of war) but also represents a commitment to the defence across the world of the liberal values that both sides share.

Dr Taehun Lim, who works at the Institute for Eurasian Research and Humanities at Chonnam National University, South Korea, studied international politics at the University of Strasbourg and received his PhD in the same field from the University of Cologne. From 2011 to 2013, Dr Lim served as an artillery lieutenant in the South Korean army.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

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Edwin's Chiloba's killing drew widespread condemnation but police have not yet given a motive.

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Jan 17 2023 (IPS)

Inflation worries topped Ipsos’s What Worries the World survey in 2022 overtaking COVID concerns. The return of inflation caught major central banks, e.g., the US Federal Reserve (Fed), Bank of England, European Central Bank “off guard”. The persistence of inflation also surprised the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The return of inflation and its persistence exposed the poverty of the economics profession, unable to agree on its causes and required policy responses. It also exposed the profession’s anti-working class biases.

Anis Chowdhury

Inflation goof
Almost all major central banks as well as the IMF dismally failed to see the coming of inflation. In December 2020, the US Fed forecast that prices would rise by less than 2% in 2021 and 2022. It failed spectacularly when in December 2021, it estimated that inflation in 2022 would be just 2.6% even though prices were already rising by more than 5% a year.

The US Fed was not alone in failing to see inflation coming. The Governor of Australia’s central bank – the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) – was so confident of low inflation that he declared in March 2021 that the interest rate would remain at a historic low until at least 2024. Inflation in advanced economies during 2021 exceeded the average of forecasters’ expectations by around 5–8 percentage points. The IMF’s forecasts have badly and repeatedly undershot inflation.

There was a widespread view among most central bankers and leading economists that the price increases (or inflation) that began in mid-2021 were temporary, and price increases would slow or inflation would drift downwards in 2022. Some, of course, insisted otherwise, and wanted immediate anti-inflationary measures. Thus, policy confusion ruled.

Inflation phobia and dogma
Soon inflation phobia overtook and central banks were advised to act decisively with interest rate hikes even if it meant slowing the economy or a rise in unemployment. Exaggerated claims were made without evidence that not acting now would be more costly later.
References to rare episodes of hyperinflation were made to justify tough policy stances.

The dogmatic inflation hawks ignored the fact that, in most cases, inflation does not accelerate to become harmful hyperinflation, but remains moderate. They also ignored their own neo-classical macroeconomic model, which suggests small welfare loss from moderate inflation.

Notwithstanding the IMF’s Article IV preamble which provides that economic policies should aim to foster “orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to [country specific] circumstances”, a one-size-fits-all policy of steep interest rate hikes became the only medicine to be applied to achieve a universal inflation target of 2%, a figure plucked from thin air. Yet, central bankers and mainstream economists boast their credibility!

Inflation excuse for class war
Inflation is primarily an expression and outcome of conflicting claims over the distribution of national output and income, e.g., firms’ profit mark-ups vis-à-vis workers’ wages. Thus, no sooner inflation spiked early in the year due to slow adjustment of COVID-induced supply shortages to pent-up demand, exacerbated by war and sanctions, leading central bankers and mainstream economists found an excuse to weaponise economic policies against the working class.

Stoking the fear of wage-price spirals, they advocate the use of an interest rate sledgehammer to create unemployment and, in turn, discipline labour. This is despite research within the IMF and the Reserve Bank of Australia which found no evidence of wage-price spirals since the 1980s due to declines in labour’s bargaining power. Thus, Bloomberg headlined, “Fattest Profits Since 1950 Debunk Wage-Inflation Story of CEOs”.

Research conducted by the IMF also found increases in firms’ or corporations’ market power, resulting in higher prices and profit margins. Yet, the IMF does not think such factors “are contributing in any sizeable way to the current inflationary environment”. Instead, it justifies such fattening of profits on the ground that “they provide flexible buffers between general wage and general price increases” and that it is only a catching-up “after taking a hit in 2020”!

But no such compassion is extended to the working people who have lost their lives and livelihoods. The calls for “front-loaded interest rate hikes simply got louder. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned, “With the prospect of higher wages as workers look to make up for the purchasing power they lost, inflation could be high for long”.

Labour a clear loser
Labour is a clear loser. Labour’s income share in the GDP has been in decline since the early 1970s. Casualisation, off-shoring, anti-union legislation and technological progress have greatly reduced labour’s bargaining power, while privatisation and dilution of anti-monopoly legislation hugely strengthened corporate power and their collusive anti-competitive behaviour. Meanwhile, CEO compensation packages swelled to obnoxious levels, rising 940% since 1978 in the US as opposed to a 12% rise for workers during that period. Profiting from the pandemic, CEO pay increased by 16% in 2020 when workers suffered, and to a record level in 2021.

Leading central bankers and mainstream economists conveniently created a dogma around a 2% inflation target to justify their anti-labour stance. The 2% inflation target has become a global norm akin to the law of gravity, even though it has no theoretical or empirical basis. The law of gravity differs depending on altitude, but the 2% target is said to be universal regardless of circumstances!

Collateral damage
Meanwhile, the advanced countries’ inflation fight is causing adverse spillover into developing countries. Higher interest rates have slowed the world economy, and triggered capital outflows from developing countries, thereby depreciating their currencies and lowering their export earnings.

Together, these are causing devastating debt crises in many developing countries, similar to what happened in the 1980s. The rating agency S&P estimates that central bank rate rises could land global borrowers with US$8.6t in extra debt servicing costs in the coming years.

Instead of providing genuine debt-relief, the G20 kicked the can down the road. As wealthy nations failed the poor countries during the pandemic, the IMF is moving to debt-distressed countries with conditionality-laden one-size-fits-all austerity packages. Thus, a Foreign Policy op-ed asked, “The International Monetary Fund: Holy Grail or Poisoned Chalice?”

Meanwhile, the chiefs of the World Bank and the BIS urged “supply-side” policies professed to increase labour force participation and investment. These are code words for further labour market deregulation, privatisation and liberalisation.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The UN’s empty corridors when the world body went into a lockdown mode because of the Covid-19 pandemic beginning March 2020. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2023 (IPS)

A new variant of Covid-19, spreading across New York city, is forcing businesses, banks and high-powered financial institutions to re-introduce flexible working hours after a brief hiatus.

At the United Nations, the lockdown has reduced the 39-storeyed Secretariat building to a veritable ghost town since most staffers continue to work from home— at least two or three days per week

The UN, which has office space, either on-rent or on long-term commercial leases outside the Secretariat, is looking for options to terminate some of these contracts– or have already done so.

When the issue of rented office space came up at a meeting of the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee back in December 2015, it was revealed that over 5,300 staffers were in off-campus, leased-buildings at a cost of more than $56 million a year.

But since the pandemic shutdown, beginning March 2020, the UN has been downsizing its off-campus operations.

Asked for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ reaction to a “completely empty building at the moment”, his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “We have experience with flexible working hours. I think it shows that it can be very productive in many cases. We continue to be also guided by recommendations from our health and safety experts.”

Asked about the rented properties for several UN departments and divisions, currently sporadically occupied, Dujarric said: “We’ve shrunk our footprint from rental properties that we have in Manhattan”.

This was in fact a trend before COVID with the “hot-desking” that has been put in place in many departments where people don’t have assigned spaces, but they will just take spaces as they come every day, given that– especially in a lot of departments — there is a lot of travel, Dujarric said.

“So, we’ve been able to shrink our real estate expenses,” he noted, while jokingly using a Hollywood metaphor: “Look Ma, I shrank the UN.”

Ian Richards, a development economist based in Geneva and a former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, told IPS through successive resolutions on what is called “flexible workplace strategies,” the General Assembly has been installing “hot-desking” at UN offices in New York, Geneva and elsewhere.

Hot-desking rules are premised on there being fewer desks than people (staff, consultants, interns) and therefore require staff to work part-time from home.

Further, and this is well documented in the scientific literature, hot-desking spaces do not allow staff to actually focus on their work, pushing more staff to work from home part of the week in order to be more productive, said Richards.

“Obviously, certain jobs lend themselves better to part-time telecommuting than others —and this is reflected in how the policy is implemented.”

However, he noted, the feedback from managers is that working from home part of the week improves productivity and motivation.
“It is also a non-negotiable requirement in the current job market if the UN wants to remain a competitive employer and keep attracting the cutting-edge skills it needs”.

In a light-hearted piece, the BBC last week focused on flashy new job titles resulting from flexible working hours: Chief Visionary Officer, Development Guru, Chief Innovation Evangelist and Chief Remote Officer.

Meanwhile, according to Cable News Network (CNN), virologists and epidemiologists say the new Omicron sub-lineage, the XBB 1.5, has features that give it the potential to drive a new surge of Covid-19 cases in the US, although it’s still unclear how large that wave will be and whether it could send many more people to the hospital.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 at the World Health Organization (WHO) is quoted as saying the XBB.1.5 is the “most transmissible subvariant detected yet”.

Speaking of flexibility at work, the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO) last week released a report pointing out that flexible working hours can benefit productivity and also advance economies and businesses while helping employees and families achieve a better work-life balance.

The issues surrounding working hours and conditions are “at the heart of most labour market reforms and evolutions taking place in the world today”, Branch Chief Philippe Marcadent said in a foreword to ILO’s Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World.

“The number of hours worked, the way in which they are organized, and the availability of rest periods can significantly affect not only the quality of work, but also life outside the workplace”.

The study, described as the first to focus on work-life balance, examines the affects that working hours and time schedules have on the performance of businesses and their employees.

Covering the periods before and during COVID-19, the report reveals that more than a third of all employees are regularly working more than 48 hours per week, while a fifth of the global workforce is labouring fewer than 35 hours per week, on a part-time basis.

“The so-called ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon has placed work-life balance at the forefront of social and labour market issues in the post-pandemic world”, said lead author Jon Messenger.

The study analyses different work schedules and their effects on work-life balance, including shifts, arrangements for being on call, compressed hours, and hours-averaging schemes.

Innovative working-time arrangements, such as those introduced during the COVID-19 crisis, can bring great benefits, including greater productivity and improved work-life balance, said Messenger.

“This report shows that if we apply some of the lessons of the COVID-19 crisis and look very carefully at the way working hours are structured, as well as their overall length, we can create a win-win, improving both business performance and work-life balance”, he added.

However, the report cautioned that the benefits of some flexible arrangements, such as spending more time with the family, may also be accompanied by greater gender imbalances and health risks.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A new conversation is needed about food production in Africa. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jan 16 2023 (IPS)

Concerns are rife that while Africa is growing more crops, these are not for food and that on the current trajectory, present food import costs into Africa, now estimated at 55 billion US dollars a year, could double by 2030.

Three crop species-maize, wheat and rice meet an estimated 50 percent of the global requirements for proteins and calories, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Yet despite Africa’s expensive agricultural sector, the continent’s maize, rice, and wheat account for 7, 5, and 4 percent of the world’s production, respectively. But experts say pitting food crops against cash crops is not the right conversation to have.

“The most productive conversation should be firmly centered on how to support farmers to produce more food for everyone and to export even more as this will improve the farmer’s quality of life and get themselves out of poverty,” says Hafez Ghanem, former regional Vice President of the World Bank Group and a current nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution.

He tells IPS the mistake many countries made after independence was to try to ensure cheap food for people in the cities by keeping farmgate prices low and by trying to coerce farmers into producing certain food crops. The result was that the farmer became poor. If the farmer is poor, they cannot produce, and in the long run, everybody becomes poor and hungry.

“No country can produce all the foods that it needs. We will have to export some and produce some. If we start increasing yields for cereals, for instance, through increased use of quality seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation, farmers can produce more food crops without interfering with cash crops production, and the farmer will be richer.”

According to the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2022, “for Africa, accelerating the transformation of our food systems is more vital than ever. Africa has a few other incentives for transforming its food system; with one of the most degraded agricultural soils in the world and increasing droughts, Africa will face significant exposure to water-related climate risks in the future.

At least 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s rural population depends on agriculture as its primary source of income. More than 95 percent of agriculture is reliant on rainfall, according to the report.

The report finds that the consequences of unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, extreme drought, and low soil carbon will further lower crop yields exposing Africa’s poorest communities to increasingly intense climate- and water-related hazards with disastrous results.

Ghanem does not believe that the issue of food security in Africa is a consequence of producing too many cash crops. The real issue, he says, is two-fold.

“The first part of the issue is that, in general, the productivity of land under cultivation for both cash and food crops is low. We need to increase land yields for both cash and food crops. The solution, I do not believe, is to stop exporting cash crops to produce more food,” he explains.

The second part of the issue, he says, is the challenge presented by climate change, and “we need to do much more to make agriculture more resilient to climate change.”

He says that concerns that there is the prioritization of cash crops over food crops are misplaced, “think about the profile of farmers in Africa. We are talking about very smallholder farmers. In countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, farmers are making much more profits producing cocoa or coffee than producing rice, for example.“We cannot ask our farmers to produce crops that are lower yielding and therefore less profitable.”

Any solution that we propose for food security, he cautions, has to bear in mind that the most food insecure and poorest people in Africa are in the rural areas.

Against this backdrop, experts such as Ghanem see no conflict between the production of food and cash crops, saying that Africa has vast lands to produce both. Outside of countries such as Egypt and other countries in North Africa, he says the rest of the continent has vast and available arable land.

Data by FAO shows Africa is home to an estimated 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Ghanem, therefore, says the solution is to facilitate farmers to irrigate their lands and access high-quality seeds and fertilizer.

Africa needs about $40 to $70 billion in investment from the public sector and another $80 billion from the private sector annually to sustain food production on the continent, according to Africa Agriculture Status Report.

Ghanem says investing in technology that can produce critical inputs such as fertilizer and climate-resilient high-quality seeds will prove highly productive in the future.

Take, for instance, fertilizer which is expensive because it is imported. He lauds the establishment of some of the world’s largest fertilizer-producing companies in Nigeria and Morocco, calling for such investments in other parts of the continent.

Ghanem says subsidies for farm inputs such as fertilizer are not the solution and that producing inputs that farmers need in-country or at least on the continent will set the agricultural sector on a resilience path to greater productivity, enough food for all, and profitability.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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